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Wednesday, November 26, 2014

If the extremist element in Pakistan has its way, popular Bollywood Pakistani actress Veena Malik along with her husband Asad Bashir Khan Khattak, TV host Shaista Wahidi, and a media mogul and owner of Geo TV will spend a very long time in jail. The four of them have been sentenced to 26 years in jail for blasphemy.

Mir Shakil-ur-Rahman, owner of Geo and Jang group, was accused of allowing the airing of a blasphemous programme by Geo television in May, which played a religious song while staging a mock marriage of Malik with Bashir.Judge Shahbaz Khan also sentenced both Malik and Bashir, along with TV host Shaista Wahidi, to 26 years each. The ATC also imposed a 1.3 million Pakistani rupees fine on the convicts.The judge said in his judgment that the four accused had committed profanity, and the court in its 40-page verdict also asked the police to arrest them, an official said. But the order is unlikely to be implemented because the Gilgit-Baltistan region is not considered a full-fledged province by Pakistan and verdicts by its courts do not apply to the rest of the country. and ordered that their properties should be sold to raise the fine, if they fail to pay it.